Wednesday, November 30, 2005

I am not good at saying good byes so I didn't say one. I just threw it on the street, the green armchair I found on the street, the one a block over about a year ago. It had been falling more and more apart each day and today, it just looked disgusting to my eyes, sunken in, and I chucked it. I also tore off the piece of plastic that used to be on our living room window for some privacy. Fuck privacy. I want sunlight. Lots of it. I am listening to Off the Wall in shorts on with all my windows open because it a gorgeous, mild day and surely, the polar ice caps will drown us all, but the beauty of today might make it all worth it. Maybe. I will change into pants before I leave for work.

There is something about these nostalgic tinted movies that is always pleasurable to watch, this evokation of some sort of Rockwellish Americana childhood, but it's also why this movies tend to annoy me. There are so many of them, ones that leap immediately to mind are The Sandlot, A Christmas Story, Crooklyn. And for that reason, it was pleasurable to watch, but also frustrating because two seperate plot threads never managed to merge, and overall, I just do not think I liked this movie that much. Definitely toward the bottom of this yet to be formulated ranking of my favorite Woody Allen movies.

It is always comforting to walk by couches on the street being thrown away because somehow, they are always uglier, always more beat up than the couch in my living room which I hate looking at, hate sitting on sometimes. Things could always be worse, I tell myself and see the evidence on curbsides all across this city on big trash days.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

When were we supposed to learn these things? How does an entire generation not know how to use a waiter's pull corkscrew? So often I will see people pulling and tugging on the cork, no one knowing that this beautiful little tool was made so you didn't have to do that. Not to say that I am more knowledgeable than everyone else. I didn't how to use one until about a year ago either. I didn't know that it functions as a lever and instead yanked and yanked at the cork. It might have been Niki who corrected me. I am not sure who it was. But now, I watch other people when they open wine and realize that everyone does the same thing, that so many people do not how to use this tool, and what other things do we not know how to do? What does this mean? What other conviences are we not utilizing or misutilizing?

I rewatched the "What is Sodomy?" piece this morning from Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex.... I had been thinking about it ever since it came up second in the movie last night, thinking back to how wild and how perfect it was throughout all the other scenes. Gene Wilder does an amazing job, and his love for this sheep seems so real, so understandable, and that is why this scene is so amazing, because it is absurd, but acted out sincerely, not overblown, and God, the quick scene shifts are done so seamlessly. It is so good.

I drank a pot of coffee this morning and now am drinking a cup of yerba mate and yet still feel slightly tired. I think it is depression and I want it to be tiredness and hope that coffee will change things, provide that spark, that joy, but my friends, it is not happening.

This movie was way more than I had expected. I had heard less than stellar things about it, but man, this movie was amazing. It was a crossbreed between an AM Homes shorty story collection, early John Waters, and Monty Python - meaning, that it is absurd and so fucking good. I don't know how I am going to rank these when I am done with this marathon, since that is one of my goals, to make a top ten list, because really, I love so many of them so much.

I bought three books today that I have really wanted for only five dollars, including a book I have coveted for at least the past year, if not the last two years, one that is pretty impossible to find except on Amazon for fifteen dollars, and which I got today for only fifty cents: The Letters of Lord Chesterfield. I am so fucking excited to read this but can't decide which one to read first. The other two: MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf and Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire.

For some reason, my work has only scheduled me for two days next week. I am not happy about this and am going to try to pick up three more shifts tomorrow when I go into work tomorrow, will say can't another person work this day and that day, can't that person be me, try to complain to my boss and hopefully get some money, so you know, I can be a consumer and get new jeans and a new computer. Um, book time!!!!

Monday, November 28, 2005

I spent the early part of this day purposefully not waiting around the house for the repair people to come, just left the doors unlocked and went record shopping at The Thing. My aunt Herta had called me earlier this morning to tell me I was in her dream last night and just to talk about my dad some. She said she was going to write a history of their growing up since I didn't and don't know it, and when done she is going to mail it to me. This led to lots of thinking about family patterns that seem to repeat themselves, substance abuse, loss of parent(s) at an early age, and man, life is so fucking scary.

Despite being totally overwhelmed by this place, The Thing - online somewhere it says they have 30,000 records - and they are in no order, packed in tight, crate after crate, all of them dusty, the aisles incredibly narrow and pieces of broken records littering the floor - depsite all this, I managed to walk away with some records.

And the albums I was most excited about, Fleetwood Mac and Carole King, both have small scratches that I failed to notice when browsing that make the songs sound awful on my favorite songs on those two albums. So now, I am listening to Jim Croce, whom I like a lot, and whom I discoverd over Thanksgiving since the station we listened to that whole time, 95.3 played the titular track more than a few times.

Last night, I saw one of the regular johns to pay my phone bill, and you know, go record shopping, and afterward, I trembled on his bed for a couple minutes afterward, shaking, spent. I watched Alice last night and Mia Farrow does such a perfect job in that movie. I really enjoyed this one a lot despite, or maybe even because of, the schmaltzy ending.

PLEASE TAKE THE FOLLOWING WARNING VERY SERIOUSLY- THE NUDE MASSEUR FROM BOSTON IS A CONVICED BOTH A SEX OFFENDER AND IS WANTED BY THE POLICE.

HIS NAME IS NOT JOHN PAUL IT IS KAINE ROSADO. INSTEAD OF GIVING YOU A MASSAGE HE WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND BEAT YOU UP IF YOU DO NOT PAY. IF YOU DO NOT BELEIVE ME, READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE VILLAGE VOICE:

www.villagevoice.com/news/0529,robbins1,66003,5.html

THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS INDIVIDUAL

***RESPONSE TO***DANGEROUS- NUDE MASSEUR FROM BOSTON - 27:I'm not so sure this is totally true. I believe I had a massage with this guy about 3 1/2 years ago at an UWS apartment (W 60s or W70s - a modern high rise) and he gave an OK massage with a kind of crummy handjob, made a couple of rude comments about my un-muscular physique, but he got me off....His ad w2as in teh Village voice male bodywork section.

So I don't know if he is this "Kaine Rosado" character -- he is hot but an erotic masseur of questionable abilities...I dont know if his new m.o. is this threatening thing, but back then he actually gave massages.

John Paul, or Kaine, is this you? Your pics look like the guy, but the guy I was with was not big, just average height and weight...

Anyway...that's my two cents

***2NDRESPONSE TO***DANGEROUS- NUDE MASSEUR FROM BOSTON - 27 - 27:I SAW THIS GUY YESTERDAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ALMOST A YEAR. HE USED TO GIVE A GOOD HJ AND BJ AS WELL AS MASSAGE BUT WHEN I SAW HIM YESTERDAY HE STARTED TO MASSAGE ME THEN WENT TO THE BATHROOM. I FOUND IM IN THERE GOING THROUGH MY WALLET. WHEN I ASKED FOR IT BACK HE CALLED ME A FAG AND TOLD ME HE'D KILL ME IF I TOLD ANYONE. HE HIT ME A FEW TIMES AND THEN LEFT WITH MY ENTIRE WALLET INCLDING ABOUT $400 IN CASH. BE VERY CAREFUL, THIS IS NOT THE TYPE OF INDIVIDUAL YOU WANT TO GET INVOLVED WITH, I HAVE BEEN ICING MY EYE ALL DAY FROM MY 'MASSAGE' YESTERDAY WITH KAINE ROSADO

BELOW ARE PICTURES OF THIS PREDATOR. BY THE WAY, HE IS NOT CUT AND BUFF LIKE HE LOOKS LIKE IN THESE PICTURES, HE HAS PUT ON AT LEAST THIRTY FIVE POUNDS

RE RE***2NDRESPONSE TO***DANGEROUS- NUDE MASSEUR FROM BOSTON - 27 - 27:What a miserable story! Only you know why you went back to him a second time? More important hopefully you report him to the police. This guy has been posting ads here for a long long time. He certainly can't be that hard to track down, and you can be helping out other guys he abuses as well.

Missed chances, bad moves, and fumbled balls - I thought of them all last night watching this Woody Allen movie on Gregg's couch. Woody Allen's character regretted never having made a move on Mia Farrow's character and said some would have could have should have stuff about the whole situation, and I was mildly drunk from this forty of beer in front of me, and I thought to boys I had blown things with also, wondered what might have come of those had I played things cooler, done anything - there are so many of them, it is absurd. And why, oh why, am I listening to The Smiths on this sad day, you may ask. And prodded for an answer, I would shrug my shoulders.

I look at hands a lot, those of boys. I really like hands, specific types, and I can think of all these hands right now, for each past crush, say the name, and I conjure their set of hands, and there is something even more painful about this, a set of hands you can see, but even if brave enough to do so, could never reach for them, them not being on the couch next to you anymore, but two, four years away.

Friday, November 25, 2005

This Thanksgiving was amazing and I thought about life and death, Florida and New York, where I want to live, what pleasures life is capable of giving us, and which ones of those I am accepting, which ones I am rejecting by my city of residence, drank lots of beer, sang and danced with my aunts, did pseudo karaoke in their living room all weekend long, and today cried my fucking eyes out, had snot dripping down my nose and found myself shaking and crying and being comforted by my crying mom, feeling that parent-child bond, feeling like I was four and in her arms, and life is really hard sometimes. I mean such shitty things happen and we get up and continue day after day knowing that shitty things are going to happen. And today, at Robert's funeral, my mom shared memories of Robert to the church and was almost crying doing so, and there is so much I could tell you, but you wouldn't care or wouldn't get it.

And afterward, in front of the church, my mom said, "That picture of Robert just killed me." And I knew what she was talking about, how a picture makes things so much more real, seeing this smiling, laughing picture of Robert and knowing that that is no more - the concept of death is made less abstract with these photos. And by this point we were both already crying, that's why she made the comment, and I thought about my dad and how it wasn't until I saw the photos Herta had of him when he was young that I got real sad and realized the loss, and I tried to tell my mom this, but this was when manageable crying turned into unmanageable grief. I tried to talk, but found myself choking on words, unable to say this thought I had so clearly in my head. And I managed to in starts, with each start, crumpling more and more, sobbing more and more. And it's the same thing with how I have been feeling lately and why I haven't been writing too well about it here, because this is an emotion that is beyond the verbal and I can't do it. The opening hymn today was "Amazing Grace." That was also sung at my dad's service and I saw the words right in front of me and wanted to sing this song that I really love but everytime I tried to bring up the words from my throat, the crying just became more heavy. So I stayed silent and closed the hymn book.

My uncle had been an alcohlic for a long time. He would drink vodka all day long and late in the night, always up sipping from his cup of vodka watching crap on tv. But he was also a good hearted person whose laugh I think, along with his wife's, Sue, influenced my own so much, their happiness and constant laughter. Sue kicked him out about a month ago because his alcohol problem was getting worse and worse. And a few days ago, he drank himself to death. He was a diabetic and had already let his blood sugar drop too low a couple times before from drinking, and the same thing happened this time, and this time he died from it. My family is amazing. All six of her sisters flew down last minute to help her and it was a packed house, fifteen people crammed in this house, drinking, telling stories, dancing, playing board games. Sue and Robert and their three kids are an extension of my immediate family, this is a big deal for me. Growing up, I spent every other weekend with him, every major holiday and we normally went on summer vacations together also. So weird that these two people so close to me since birth are now gone. I can still hear my mom's voice shaking, unsteady, God, that is what killed me. My eyes have watered a lot recently, but sobbing with tears coming nonstop, I haven't done such I was a kid. I don't understand life, any part of it. It makes me incredibly sad. By the way, I think I want to move.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

You know what the best is? When you wake up at seven-thirty, excited that there is hot water, and get in the shower, and only after one minute, with no warning, when you are covered in shampoo, does the water turn to icicles and start pelting you. Because we have no hot water again. And I walked to the bank in freezing weather, ready to cry because it was so cold, only to find out that I was there an hour early, that the bank doesn't open til nine, and I had to walk back in the freezing cold, and will have to walk there again soon. That's totally the best. As in not the.

You know what the best is? When you wake up at seven-thirty, excited that there is hot water, and get in the shower, and only after one minute, with no warning, when you are covered in shampoo, does the water turn to icicles and start pelting you. Because we have no hot water again. And I walked to the bank in freezing weather, ready to cry because it was so cold, only to find out that I was there an hour early, that the bank doesn't open til nine, and I had to walk back in the freezing cold, and will have to walk there again soon. That's totally the best. As in not the.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

This one Peachwaves song being played right now on NY Noise is pretty awesome. The video, not so awesome. But, something about books and covers, and feeling like you did when you first moved to New York close to three years ago, you being a fucking adult on your own in the big city, like you used to fantasize when you were a young teenager, bored in your bedroom with your town and your life, and how good this music sounds when you are feeling that way is pretty incredible.

Some numbers: Friday, I am going to one funeral. This is number two for me in three weeks. This is number three for me so far this year. This is the fourth person I have know who has died in 2005.

Work sucks dick, and not in the hot sense. I love sucking dick. I love having mine sucked. I have to stop using that in a derogatory sense, because work was most definitely not fun at all.

I won't have email til I get back, but know that I love you and cannot wait to see you, hug you, and dance with you. Maybe even play a little Scrabble. I know what rock and roll is and this Pixies song is that, life is. I am Frank Black. Life is terrifying and awesome and and and what is it not

The weather is everything bad all at once. Cold air, cold rain, wind that whips your umbrella inside out. My house is without hot water for the umpteenth day in a row. I called my landlord last night and still have no clue what the hell she is doing, when this problem is going to be fixed. Tomorrow, I am going to Florida where the weather will be warmer, where, I am assuming, since it is the 21st Century in America and all, that my aunt will have steady hot water and I can take a really long shower and feel clean for the first time in a week.

I am pretty sad about my uncle's death. He was a really close relative. My dad and him were friends in Florida before they both eventually married these sisters. And both of them dead within three weeks of each other is bringing up lots of childhood memories and thoughts about life, mine, and the broader concept - mine always grounding that one. Some call that ego. I don't. But man, life, and forgiveness, and how things change when someone's not alive, everything seems pettier. God, what am I doing?

My eyes watered so many times at work yesterday. I don't know what I am doing with my life but don't really like whatever it is that is. I don't know what closeness is. I watched Shadows and Fog last night with a really bad bottle of wine, and it is definitley in my top five fave Woody Allen movies. I loved it so much, the noirish elements to it - everyone was so good in it. I want to say more but find myself unable to write, think coherent thoughts today and yesterday. Soon.

Monday, November 21, 2005

I am going to the place I love for Thanksgiving, Florida. I think this is right and am glad I am going and look forward to those flat roads and that sun and that water and everything. I leave Wednesday afternoon at 1:10 from JFK and before leaving I have to wake up real early, get my paycheck, deposit it, and pay my landlord our rent finally. Then I will be free and gone, gone, gone. It's a short trip. I am coming back on Friday night. This will be sad and nice and life.

What he wrote:Fate really tickles me. You know, I didn't really think that anyone actually ever met people who posted something in "Missed Connections." Yes, it's very much like tossing the bottle with the letter out to sea.

However, I was mildly amazed when my friend called me tonight while I was at work and said "Dude... my roomate saw a post on craigslist... and it was about you."I could have died.

Then, of course, I went online once I got home to check it out. Turns out there were two postings about me--you, and one from some chick who was there. I think it was the blonde who kept slapping my ass.Anyhow--as to not drag this on... I just thought I'd drop you a line. You seem like a really nice guy. Perhaps I'll see you around, but as I told your friend last night when he came up to me and outed you for having a crush on me, "I'm a go-go boy. I'm obviously fucked up and emotionally unavailable." This is very true. Whatever--I really do believe that it's generally not a good idea to show interest in guys who's first impression of you is dancing nearly naked on a bar for money. Obviously, the psychological behavior patterns of all go-go dancers are so transparent. I mean, seriously, how fucked up do you have to be to get on a bar and strip for means of validation? I digress...

Sunday, November 20, 2005

My mom just called me. She normally doesn't call at ten o'clock at night and normally doesn't call two days after I talked to her, but I didn't think anything of it. And after those introductory exchanges, hi, how are you doing, good, good, she told me that she was sorry, but that she had to give me some more bad news. I said what, said it casually, like what is the world going to throw my way now, and I was really scared that it was my sister, far away living in Indonesia killed in one of the numerous bombings that have been happening there in the past couple months. And in that brief second between my What and her response, the scenarios that played across the screen of my mind were numerous, take longer to recount than the second that they actually occured in.

And she responded that my Uncle Robert died. This is an uncle that I never really liked, but whom I was very close to. Our two families spent just about every other weekend together. His wife, Sue, is my mom's sister and probably her closest sister (there are nine siblings). We drove to their houses in Delmarva all the time during the warm weather since they lived first in Rehobeth Beach and then Ocean City. My mom helped her through all three of her childbirths, through one misscarriage. And I was, and still am, really close to those three girls. Our two families are bound in numerous, painful ways, but that is life and that is why I feel such a connection to them, those girls are way too knowledgable about the world for how young they are. One is a freshman in college, one is in 11th grade, and one is in 9th grade and now suddenly, they are having to deal with more stuff, with the loss of their father, as much of an asshole as they may have thought he was.

My mom didn't know many of the details about his death, just that it involved a crime scene. She is flying down to Florida tomorrow morning to comfort her sister and help her though this, and the parellels between our families continue with dead fathers. This means that I am no longer going to New Jersey for Thanksgiving. My mom offered to buy me a ticket to go to Florida for Thanksgiving but I said no thanks, that I could stay here, I'd be okay. Really, I just wasn't sure I could handle a grieving house for a couple of days, and I asked my mom if that was wrong of me, and she said no, that it was okay, understandable. So I may be alone for Thanksgiving, may host a dinner here.

I don't know. My mind is not here enough right now to write. Death, again at the forefront of my thoughts. Robert, though, I remember his advice when I was about to go to college so clearly. It was toward the end of a night that both my parents and him and Sue had spent drinking, chatting, listening to music. I could smell the vodka on his breath, but I knew what he was saying were the sincere thoughts enabled by drunkeness even though I had still yet to drink at that point in time. I remember it because it reminded me at the time of the opening lines of The Great Gatsby, and also of my favorite movie at the time, The Graduate. He gave me one word of advice that was the only real advice I took to heart when starting school, perhaps ever, "Tolerance."

Anthony Shriver, founder of Best Buddies, a nonprofit organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities form friendships, said smaller numbers will mean even greater social isolation for the people his group serves.

"Loneliness is one of the most significant challenges they face," Mr. Shriver said. "And it would only become more acute as they became a smaller segment of the population."

- from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/weekinreview/20harmon.html

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Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in Italian fields.

Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness?

-from Haruki Murakami's "The Year of Spaghetti"

*******************************

One read twenty minutes before the other, and in both, that word loneliness jumped off the page, had the effect of devastating me. I think I understand this concept perhaps better than I have at any other time in my life. That first article is heartbreaking, this forward march of the world and of medicine that resembles eugenics and allows for less and less difference. That short story is only a brief two pages and is so good, conjures loneliness so well.

I just messed up a chance to earn some easy cash seeing a regular that I like hooking up with. He was in a hurry and told me that he'd like to get together but that I would have to get there by four at the latest. And I like to dawdle around, taking my time getting ready and I made it nearly impossible for myself to get there on time. I arrived at the subway stop at 3:40 and the only way it would have worked is if the train would have arrived right as I got there, but the opposite happened, I just missed the train, and I waited around til 3:50 before leaving the station and calling the guy to tell him that I wouldn't have been able to make it by four. My own tardiness and laziness have shot me in the foot yet again. Not that I needed the money since I get a big paycheck on Wednesday, but I was planning on buying some expensive fun new shoes with that money this afternoon. I think that is something that contributed to my tardiness, daydreams of wasting money on things I didn't particularly need. The knowledge that I could have something prevented my possession of it. There is an analogy, a metaphor about life somewhere in this.

So yes, just two, three days ago I was kvetching about the music I hear when I go out, citing The Smiths as one example of something I hear too goddamn much, but last night, on that dancefloor at Royal Oak, it was a song by them, my favorite one to dance to (not my favorite to listen to at home, sad), "Hang the DJ," it was this song that made me lose my fucking shit. And it was much straighter, much more American Eagle that it normally is there, but during this song I felt a communion with all these heteros and had the briefest of revelations that I am unable to verbalize now, was unable to then, and knew that the moment was fleeting, probably the two, three minutes of that song, so I danced and sang really loud and stomped around. And that's where this feeling of being bound up with all humans came about because earlier in the night, I watched all these various straight boys lose their shit and scream and yell at the top of their lungs and stomp as the Pixies played or some other songs I recognized but would be hard pressed to name the band that sings them. And I thought, all the same, these boys aren't capable of holding it in either when so moved, that there are these songs that everyone loses their shit to in such similar ways. It is amazing.

I was in a funk last night and really this song was the peak of my night. I didn't even really want to go out. The night started with Ethan, Adele, Schlitz, Chinese Food and Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose. It was pretty good and Mia Farrow does a really excellent job playing a hardened broad, something I would not have thought her capable of. I was already tired after this and was sort of dreading the expectations of both Adele and Ethan, who both wanted to go out to a bar. I turned the TV to 13, which was playing one of my all time favorite movies, Some Like it Hot, and watched as much of it as I could before giving in to the peer pressure of the other two. Adele wanted to go to Barcade, Ethan to Metropolitan, and if I was going out, I wasn't going to either of those places, so I brought them to Royal Oak, which was definitely the peak of last night's bar crawl.

After getting a little restless with even the absence of the potential for dick at that bar, I suggested Fun, and the three of us headed off there. It was more populated than the last time I was there and hopefully it will just keep snowballing until the bar can live up to its name. Adele was one of two girls there and I think pretty bored since she wanted to meet boys also. I seated myself on one of the couches and stared at one of the most beautiful go-go boys ever. Certainly not hot in the go-go boy sense of the word. No muscles whatsoever, a boy skinner than me with this gorgeous mane of dark brown hair and soccer socks and Carolina blue skivvies on. I was storing these mental details about him, knowing that I would end my night masturbating to those recalled images of this gorgeous boy.

At some point, I think right after I danced really lost to Mary J. Blige's "Real Love," a song that hit the spot more than anything else probably could have at that moment, right after this, the go-go boy was standing right near us, and Ethan was like keep dancing, he's looking at you, and really too many beers by this point, too tired and Ethan went over to talk to him and I ran to Adele, really embarrassed because I knew Ethan was going to tell him I had a crush on him. Ethan talked to him for a decent bit, and I think the dancer liked him and then Ethan and I did body shots off this boy's chest, off his lack of a chest. And we left right after to go to Capone's so Adele could perhaps interact with some boys of the straight variety, and that place was pretty much a bust in every sense of the word. Practically empty except for some douchebags up on the smoking patio. We ate some pizza and then all came home and really I think I may have started writing this with the intention of saying something and I think everything went to hell, all intention gone, gone out the window, as soon as I mentioned that hot go-go boy and my mind can't handle such thoughts without wandering, wondering if I should go jack off in my room now since my room in not soundproof and it seems all my roomies are still asleep, so not in the living room right outside my door.

And last night, with Ethan asleep on the couch right outside my flimsy excuse for a door made of glass, I so quietly masturbated to thoughts of that go-go boy, was sort of spiteful toward Ethan, thinking that if only he weren't in my living room, I could move on my bed a little, not feel so constrained to this one spot, not wanting my bed to squeak, and surely that was drunk paranoia, and I don't know what this is I am writing, hungover silliness? Maybe.

Because the music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life.

I could draw you a picture of this boy, the go-go dancer, the details of his appearance, his body are so crystal clear in my mind, how when he bent over to talk to someone seated at the bar, his back to me, how his underwear clung to his asscrack and beneath that, bent over as he was, you could see the clear outline of his ballsack, the underwear clinging to that also. I could draw this and his gorgeous smile, that big, dark hair. Assuming of course, that I knew how to draw.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

It is amazing to me that there are so many of them, that there is an even a term for this type of film, mockumentary. This one, I believe, but of course, am not a film historian, is a pretty early one, 1983, and so it gets some points for that. Not to say that it is in need of points. It is a really funny, touching movie that talks about loneliness in a more earnest manner than Woody Allen does in most of this other movies, even though, the specter of it is always there, driving characters into each other spouse's arms.

It also seems to me, perhaps also because I am reading John Updike right now, to explicitly try to talk about the idea of America and what our culture is, the things we like, our tabloid culture and why that is. This movie is so fantastical - parts of it amazed me thinking of Woody Allen's mind that produced this - that he created this mythical tale to explore our desire to be loved in this world and what we will do just for that to happen. This is defintely one of my favorites that I have seen so far during this marathon.

Again, our building is without hot water and heat and so forgive me for not saying more, for not trying to say it better because I am in a grumpy mood and cold. I am drinking wine, listening to the Smashing Pumpkins and thinking about Updike, and when I am in a better mood, or maybe when I finish the book, I am going to try to put down these thoughts.

PS - Susan Sontag and Saul Bellow are in the film. Lit geek out time! Aaah!

Friday, November 18, 2005

Moderation, it's an idea and a word that I find myself circling back to again and again throughout my life, that anything I like, anything I enjoy must be enjoyed in moderation, must be alternated with other things for me to continue to appreciate those loved things. Music in New York. Music at white hipster bars in New York. How many times can I muster enthusiasm for Pat Benetar and The Smiths before it starts to become tiring?

Going out lately is reminding me of my last couple years at New College, where going to parties, I always heard the same selection of songs over and over again, rarely anything new, and for a while, a couple years, these bars were able to excite me with this music, but now I think I would lose my shit and dance like a maniac were I to hear any of those booty rap songs from New College. That is why I love The Captain (Patrick) so much because he plays a rock song, and lots of early nineties r and b, occasionally older r and b, raunchy stuff like Ying Yang Twins, and just nice finds. I don't know where it was that I read a DJ talking about his profession as an art form and distanced himself from that line of thinking, that he wasn't the artist so much as the curator. And these curators at these bars I have been going to, last night at Stache are lazy, bringing nothing to these viewers, not giving me new rhythms to try to concieve my body in relation to, but stuff I have already experienced way too many times. Tommy played a Journey song though that I did sort of lose my shit to, and that's what I want to hear, good stuff, odd choices that don't get played every night of every single week.

A while ago, I had talked to David about exploring more neighborhoods in New York, checking out the gay bars in Jackson Heights and really I need to hear different stuff. I'm going to that Desi party the next time it is thrown, might even go again to that gay hip hop bar near Times Square again that I went to with Joe once. I just need to experience some new things, alternate what I am hearing. And it is so funny that I enjoy Matt and Kevin's hip hop night so much, that these are all the songs I heard endlessly at New College and thought they were so tired, but now, against this tide of eighties hits, rock ballads, and indie dance songs, it is positively countercultural. And surely, you might encounter some problems if you try to think about the political implications of a bunch of white gay hipsters dancing to these booty hip hop songs, but I am way more interested in the political implications of white gay hipsters not dancing to this music ever, playing such white music all the time.

And not to say that I didn't have a good time at Beauty Bar last night, I really did. I had gone to gallery openings earlier and drank a couple beers, a couple Dixie cups of red wine and saw some good things, the video art show at LFL was good. The Araki show made me really uncomfortable, but I still really enjoyed it, probably for that same reason. Radcliffe Bailey's show at Jack Shaimman was really amazing and I need to go back and think about it more so I can say what exactly it was about it I loved. But the last four shows I have seen at this gallery have all been excellent and reaching for something that most other art shows would never dare to. I think this is the gallery with the most to say of all the Chelsea ones, they keep on putting up really good work that is mildly political but totally excellent and beautiful. After seeing all these, I ended my night at the show Gregg was in and talked to a bunch of people, smoked cigarettes in the stairwell and had a really lovely time because I am in love with human beings lately even though toward the end of the night I did start to join Ethan's chemical castration game and mark people I thought deserving of it. Ignore that, because I love it, you, all of it.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

It is not often, which is odd considering how often and how much I drink, that I wake up with a hangover, a headache from hell and feeling like shit, asking myself why I was so out of control the previous night. This morning, afternoon actually, was one of those times.

I met Gregg and Matt at Number 1 Chinese, but ended up being left alone very soon afterward and I was drunk because I hadn't eaten since six and had consumed a few vodka-tonics, and so was being way more social, more brave than I normally am. I talked to new people last night, made some friends, made out with an 18 year old briefly at that bar, before leaving there with Seth, one of the new people I met, to walk up to Nowhere. I was kind of thinking, hoping that making out might happen between Seth and myself. But once at Nowhere, he was obviously interested in one of my friends, so I left them to talk, encouraged my friend and talked to other people about nonsense, got yelled at my Stephen Merritt, who told me to stop talking so loud.

Followed a crowd of people to Phoenix where I tried to get Zan to make out with me, for some reason after telling him how much I wanted to make out with his roomie. Last night, I was so absurd, and I think part of the impetus for the absurdity came from the knowledge of how absurd I was being, thinking it was funny and holding nothing back. I don't know. The hangover from hell of this morning but point to the real impetus being way too much booze of too many varieties.

I got a call this afternoon from the regular, took some aspirin to calm the headache, went out to his apartment and pissed down his throat before cumming in his mouth. Shit, I am running late. Gots to go to Chelsea for openings. Aaahhhh! I am insane!

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Today, people are treating me weird and I am not sure why, but the number of friendly encounters has me feeling like something is wrong. Walking down Bedford this morning to get a bagel, this woman in her car, young hipster lady kept catcalling me and made me feel so awful, like I am pretty sure she was making fun of me.

Then an hour of so later, getting off the subway, walking to work, a high school boy asked me to give him a high five. I did and kept walking and then he asked for a hug and I was rushing to work and thinking he was joking but I turned around and he was serious. I regretted not hugging him for the next ten minutes. Then on the elevator when I was going to lunch some really attractive lady was insanely friendly and was like, "I don't think I know you," and I talked to her really awkward and nervously and LOUDLY because I talk really loud when I am nervous.

And it's raining and I am at work and have to get off before I get fired.

If anyone is going out to No. 1 tonight, you should let me know because I might want to go and dance after I get off work since it's my favorite DJ that plays there tonight. Of course, I might not want to go if it is going to be pouring as predicted.

I am unexcited that the Araki opening I have been excited about for the past month is listed on myopenbar. Not that it wasn't going to be crowded anyways, but if there are stupid tools there, I am going to spill my drink(s) on them. I used to enjoy the fact that not many people loved him except for the people that worked in the art department at the Strand. Even talking to art fags, most didn't know who he was/is - but whatever, most of my resentment is probably that I can never distance myself far enough from these hipster cultural tastes and whims. I want to not be part of these waves, but I really do love Araki and Bellwether and Wolf Parade and even the new Neil Diamond album, which everyone else also loves. I often wonder about what this means, if this does not make me a tool also. At least, hopefully, a tool with taste. A second "at least" would have to be that at least I don't like comics. A third: I don't knit.

Not that it was bad - it, in fact, was actually pretty good - but it wasn't what I wanted. When you want a certain type of ice cream nothing else will suffice, it will always be flawed next to the imaginary pleasures you would have gotten from say Dublin Mudslide, and it was similar tonight, I was aware that this was a Woody Allen movie, but it wasn't a comedy, wasn't what normally qualifies as an Allen movie.

It was way better than his prior attempt at serious drama, Interiors, had a couple light moments, a soundtrack, and probably the real reason that I enjoyed it so much is that it stars one of my favorite actresses, Gena Rowlands. But I realized that so much of the reason that I love her may be because she stars in Cassavetes' films, which are themselves perfect in such a singular way, because here, her character, an uptight woman seemed so ill fitting to Rowlands.

During the film, I sat in the chaise lounge in our living room, with my right leg resting on my left knee, stroking gently the sole of my raised foot, thought about loneliness after Rowlands' character proclaimed hers, thought of mine and became more aware of the hand, my own, against my foot, thought to how long it was that someone had touched my body gently in any sort of caress, and thought to how long it was before that remembered encounter. So few and so long ago.

Say everything you want to say. It's the only thing you can do. Say anything just to let them know you love them.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

For the price of one dollar, a pittance for a day of daydreams, I have been lost to daydreams about what my life would be like were I $310 million dollars richer. I haven't allowed myself these fantasies of capitalism, these longings for wealth in years and years. It has been probably since before I left for college and was more willing to daydream about what life might hold or it could hold, when things seemed less determined than for whatever reason they do now. Ten minutes go by of daydreams and when I finally check myself I am in meetings with a realtor to buy this gorgeous brownstone in Park Slope. It's really fun, allowing yourself to have these fantasies, these little imaginary interactions in your head. More fun than I had remembered.

I am thinking back to the old Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, not that Tim Burton thing, and how everyone wanted the golden ticket and how when younger, it is so much easier to get that thrill, to understand these kids in the movie and to want that also, that barely checked greed that put in an acceptable forum such as winning a prize, the lottery, makes it all okay, or at least seemingly so, and the guy at the bodega asked me how many tickets I wanted. I said one. And unlike the teacher in that movie who, incredulous, asked Charlie "One?", telling him he couldn't have just bought one Wonka Bar, the guy behind the register said nothing, just printed my ticket. But by his very questions, I knew that some people probably bought multiple, multiple tickets. If even I bought a ticket, taken with the spirit of the high jackpot, surely people that regularly buy tickets must be going bananas.

Last night, I watched Hollywood Ending with Adele and a cheap but yummy bottle of Tempranillo-Garnacha. The wine was better than the movie, and that isn't saying so much about the wine, as it is about the movie. It was all right, but surely the least perfect of the Allen movies I have watched so far in this marathon. It was definitely funny to watch Allen so blatantly talking about his own career, how he is a has been, and his movies from the last decade have sucked (not that I think so). But aside from all these inside jokes I got out of it, the movie was just missing something. It was too reliant on physical comedy, rather than on hyperverbal riffing.

Months ago, I applied to work at the Whitney as a "sales associate" (er, gift shop lackey), and because the way things in New York work is insane, because obviously, I don't need money and no one else does and so jobs contact you months after you apply, I got a call from them for an interview. And so I am going to try to schedule one and see how much this job pays and maybe even try to get the job if is decent. Also at some point in the next nine days, I have to go to court because they are claiming I didn't fill out the juror questionnaire, even though I remember doing it online. Fucking bullshit:

"Because of your failure to respond to these subpoenas as required by law, your personal appearance is necessary. You are to report to the Supreme Court Building, 360 Adams St., Bklyn, NY, County Clerks Office, Room 156 between 8AM to 4:30PM within 10 days from the date of this notice. The entire process should take no longer than 15 minutes. Non appearance may subject you to a fine of $1,000 and/or imprisonment."

Monday, November 14, 2005

A cold shower in mid-November is a different thing from a cold shower in mid-August. The coldness was more than I was expecting, more than I thought I could handle since it made even my hand that I tested out the water with, cold. So instead, I stood just outside the tub and tried to wash my hair by leaning my head over the tub. I caught myself letting out screams but could do nothing about them. It felt good, letting these things out.

The cold water occasionally hitting my back, the terror it induced was enough to erase the stress that I had been feeling earlier this morning over nothings. What also helped was the maturbation session before attempting to shower. I lied on my bed soaked in rays of sunlight, felt the sun on my skin, watched these two flies circle around each other up and down through the air sketching little DNA spirals, came all over my chest and wiped it up with a towel.

Three other things that help, helped, are helping: this cigarette, this second cup of coffee, this old Aimee Mann CD. And there are all these things that hold pleasure, and there are things are body holds that can be released to enable pleasure, and you've got take what you can get, let go of what you can.

At Daniel's brown party, drunk and in love with words, hearing myself talk and talk to strangers about life, Woody Allen and watersports, talking like I sometimes like to write, hearing myself riffing on all these things, performing my best, trying to impress, intrigue boys whose clothes I wanted to see on the messy floor of my bedroom, I found myself talking to so many people, starting out usually by asking them what their favorite Woody Allen movie was. A litmus test that's easy to pass. Only one person, one of my crushes, failed. Josh of the saucer cup brown eyes said that he didn't like Woody Allen. This is only the second person I have ever known who has said such a thing. I am really convinced that there is something subhuman about people who do not like Allen movies, that they are underdeveloped human beings.

Not that I needed to forgive him for this or look past it since he barely looks at me and has no interest in me, but he still has the ability to make me giddy just looking at that brown hair, those big eyes. But a common response to this question by other crushes, probably the most common, aside from Annie Hall, of course, was Husband and Wives, and so it was that one that I picked up at Videology yesterday. And it is amazing that some bands have trouble compiling a decent Greatest Hits album after numerous albums, that they are incapable of assembling even fifteen works, three minutes in length that are worthy of being remembered, and yet, Woody Allen, I have now seen probably twenty-plus movies of his, much longer than three minutes and they are all so amazing, that this is a mind constantly at work, and while he may rework the same themes over and over again, the insights he is able to provide doing so never tire.

I am really in love with good opening paragraphs. One I still remember clearly is the opening to The Fortress of Solitude. I still pick up that book from time to time just to read those first few paragraphs and marvel at how perfect they are. This is from years spent working at bookstores and libraries and picking up book after book and reading the first few lines, bored at work, picking up this one, reading that paragraph, looking for meaning, hidden advice, Ouija board, Ouija board, would you help me?, because I still do feel so horribly lonely. A couple years ago, I picked up Rabbit, Run and really loved the opening lines and made a mental note to eventually get around to reading the lines that followed those, the book. Yesterday I got the book and reread those first few lines, vaguely remembered them, thought slightly less of them than the memory I held of them, and even did a little mental editing of the lines. Excised three of the words, changed the tense of one word, and thought to myself how much better the sentences flowed sans those three words. These are Updike's opening lines, and since you know, he was won a Pulitzer and all, I won't edit them:

"Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it. Legs, shouts. The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires."

Today is Day #2 of No Hot Water in our building because the janky oil company our landlord employs did not make it out here yesterday, and if I get back from work and there is still no hot water, I am going to be mad and do nothing about it. Since I have yet to pay my November rent, I really do not want to talk to my landlord.

It is times like this when I wish I was physically able to be one of those people that can go weeks without showering, but if I don't shower each day, I start to get visible dandruff, and so since I have to go to work today and interact with the world I am going to take a cold shower and try not to die after I finish this cup of coffee.

Speaking of coffee, I think my coffee maker might be broken as in it leaks grindy coffee water everywhere and I do not know how this happened, but it is something that adds to the irritable mood I already am in due to the lack of a hot shower, due to the fact that my downstairs neighbor has a drum kit in their living room that someone is playing right now, due to the fact that the dishes are piling up on our counter because yeah, did I mention we don't have hot water to wash them.

I was woken up many times through the night last night by the tv and my roommate talking loudly on the phone in the living room. At some point, I woke up to hear every word of her loud conversation and looked at my clock to see that it was 4:30. At that point, I woke up and told her to go talk in the kitchen. I don't sleep nearly as well in this room as in my old room which was isolated in the hall away from all these little noises.

I bought a copy of John Updike's Rabbit, Run for 1.95 yesterday while Adele and I, dirty, tired and unshowered wandered around stores in Williamsburg. I watched Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives last night and there is so much I fucking want to say but I am so irritable because of this lack of hot water thing and the interuppted sleep I got and by the fact I have to go to work soon and by everything. Fuck showering. First masturbating. I must get rid of this stress.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him

Sentences presented for my benefit, your consumption; probably presented more so in this form out of the expediencies of time more so than anything else (meaning: it is Saturday night and I've got a brown party to go to, homos to hit on, and life to live):

I just watched Woody Allen's Anything Else, and it is amazing no matter what any one says.

I am decked out in all brown.

I went to my dad's funeral today, got drunk before three with relatives, and that proverb In Vino Veritas, so true. I learned so much about my dad, good things, and celebrated a life with nice people and may, will say more when I am not in such a hurry.

The fall leaves on the ride to Montclair are psychedelic insane.

I don't know who chose the gospel reading, Matthew 11:25-30, but I felt like it was chosen for me, a way of chiding me. Seriously, look at it.

Matthew 11: 25 - 3025 At that time Jesus declared, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes;26 yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

I talked to an old man at the busstop in Montclair before deciding he was crazy and I didn't want to end up sitting next to him on the bus, and put on my headphones, playing Mellon Collie..., before deciding that wasn't what I wanted to hear, and put on Al Green's Greatest Hits.

Life is amazing and I am my body is so jittery, perhaps because I am drunk for the second time in twelve hours, perhaps because I have had so many cups of coffee at so many points in this long day, but perhaps just because all of this is so fucking amazing.

I didn't realize what I lost until I saw the photos of my dad his sister had brought.

I am watching Billy Joe Armstrong sing on Conan right now, looking at his hair, touching my own, and thinking yes, I have hair, and I am not cutting it, and it is going to get bigger and messier just like the effect Billy Joe has gone for with kinking up his hair on this performance. I just drank a bottle of Malbec with Adele and smoked a decent number of Parliaments, while watching Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, which is absolutely amazing.

I mean, I may trim the sides of my hair soon. Not much.

My dad's memorial service is tomorrow.

This movie is so good and not because I went to a liberal arts college and like anything meta just for the sake of it. It says so many amazing things about film and what we get out of it, and how it is distinct from the lives we live, how there aren't happy endings. I think I am going to masturbate and go to bed and then wake up in a few short hours and try not to die.

I lost it on the train ride home and Adele could tell I was an emotional mess when I got home, but now I feel so much better. I was listening to this old Tracy Chapman album and it just devastated me, took the wind out of me, and I could feel my eyes reddening and watering, and I was getting short of breath, and this time in my life now is the only time I have been so easily affected by music. I always have been, in that my body must move to it and I want to dance. But so often lately, my eyes water up listening to songs and this makes me so happy because this is a new feeling that I have never had. And also, this is the album with "Fast Car" on it, and perhaps I should tell you that I got really into this album long after it was released, during my second (?) year of college, followed by the semester I took off from school and lived at home in Virginia and this was during the period of time that I had to drive my dad to chemo appointments on my days off from work, when I was working at an organic grocery store in DC as a checkout boy,

You see my old man's got a problemHe live with the bottle that's the way it isHe says his body's too old for workingI say his body's too young to look like hisMy mama went off and left himShe wanted more from life than he could giveI said somebody's got to take care of himSo I quit school and that's what I did ....And I work in a market as a checkout girlI know things will get better

And it was during this song that all that started to come back, that and other stuff, that stuff triggering other stuff and me living back in that house and driving my mom's minivan to the Kaiser building with my dad in the passenger seat, unhappy there, wishing he could drive himself, trying to critique my driving. The Whitman bio I was reading at that time while he was in that office and later, him and some friend snorting Oxycontin in the backseat of my mom's minivan in the hospital's parking garage and me trying not to cry in the frontseat, to somehow accept that this was my life and man, the things this album provoked in me, the memories and I think I might even have known that it had that capacity when I put it in my discman, but I ignorned or wanted to bring on those emotions. I am not sure.

I made it five songs into the album. I couldn't take the emotions I was experiencing anymore halfway through "Baby Can I Hold You." Put on that song when you are sad and try not to feel terribly lonely and lose it.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Last night, I was in a caffeniated trance rocking out to the first albums of Le Tigre and Bjork (okay, not that one from when she was 12 but her proper first solo album, Debut), and suddenly work was over. On the subway ride home, I finished Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age! just as I reached my stop. I came home, made myself some pasta covered not only in pesto, but with goat cheese - so much fat, so much yum. And I stuffed myself with this as I watched The OC which had been taped. And so I could fast forward through the commercials, and maybe because of this, but really because the episode involved a gang of hot, shirtless surfers, I loved this episode so much.

This season has been a let down, as the show has obviously been hijacked by a team of soap opera writers. The plotlines are so absurd in this season with all these crazies popping up out of nowhere. But last night, we finally got to understand more about two of these characters, and in a lovely scene, got to see that Taylor Townsend is such a bitch because she has no friends and has a pushy mom that wants her to be popular. But still, barely any word about college even though this is their senior year. I really hope this is the last season of this show, as I don't want to watch it slide even further as it tries to follow these kids to college. Although, there could be something fun about watching these kids in a crazy dorm setting.

I am listening right now to Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, which if I were to be honest with myself and with you, I would include in a list of my top ten albums of all time, maybe even top five.

Tomorrow, my dad's cousin is picking me up in front of Port Authority at ten am to drive me out to his house in Montclair. I sort of wanted to take the bus or train and have this alone time to myself to watch scenery out the window, but now, I will have a for sure awkward car trip with this man who I haven't talked to in about a decade. My dad's sister, Herta, is going to be there also. My mom is not going to be there. She told me she thought it would be "weird" if she went. And everyone has to make their own choices. So I will be stuck for a day with a bunch of relatives I don't know, relatives who I think have always secretly hated me and my mom. I could talk about race here and how, being closer to my mom, I have normally identified more as white than as Latino, but I don't have time to explore that right now, seeing as I do have to leave for work real shortly. But needless to say, I think my relatives are aware of that and see me as an outsider, someone who would disregard them. Ugh. I don't know what I am trying to say. Also, because MTA is out of their fucking mind, 18 of the 19 subway lines that run on weekends are either not going to be running or running alternate/abbreviated routes. Some people do actually leave their house on the weekends and need to get around. The L is completely shut down. Luckily, the only line not affected is the M, which is not too far from my house. But that does not go to Port Authority and this means I am going to have to leave my house so early tomorrow to get there on time and figure out which trains are and which ones are not running. Fuck you, MTA!

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Yeah, obviously I was way drunk last night if I did not even notice one of my major crushes saying hi to me. By the way, work sucks.

hi charlie. i saw you at nowhere last night. youcame in and i was on the couch and i was all "heyhey" and you were all " . . . . " and my friend wasall "you got dissed" and i was all "i'm gonna seeabout this on friendster tomorrow." but hope youhad a good night.

At Nowhere tonight, some boy that Daniel introduced me to, smiled and made some comment about me being Drunk Spice, maybe because I was so perky and so drunk, although I was not accepting of this drunk state until after I left that bar, after I waited for the train, after I seriously considered reading aloud this Oe passage I loved to the crowed L train, after I ate a slice of pizza, after I walked home in the rain, and after I almost fell alseep talking to Bonnie on the phone about boys, that I realized and admitted to myself, Whoa, I am drunk. And surely it's because all I really ate today was the bagel I had for breakfast before leaving for work and drinking started pretty much as soon as I left work.

At the bar I went to, the long time crush - yes, there are so many -- but really not, three maybe --- Christopher, Craig, and Josh --- -- - the third, Josh, was there and this is another person that has just grown cooler since I met all these people two years ago when all of them and myself first arrived in this town. Josh is now working with Takashi Murakmai which just makes him even cooler, and he loves Oe, but whatever - I am Drunk Spice and am going to bed, dreaming about boys and wishing I did not have to go and turn off brain again tomorrow at that boring place at that boring job. I want to live, live, live and make out and play with penises and dance to old r and b. Oh my god, I cried last night at the 6th Avenue subway stop when this old black woman was singing opera and I cried again today twice at work, once while listening to Al Green, the second time while listening to Marvin Gaye. I am so emotional lately and not sad, but just emotional, and I fucking love it and probably love you. I was thinking about writing Nora and Niki tonight, the two redheaded N's whom I have cut ties with and telling them I love them, maybe I will soon. Maybe life is too much for me to handle sometimes. Good night. Great night!

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

I listened to Bjork's Vespertine for seven hours straight today while at work, over and over again. When I was leaving, I got stuck waiting for the elevator with this boy who I had never talked to. To make conversation and make things less awkward, he asked me what I had been listening to. I told him Vespertine. And he asked, joking, as if that would be all I would listen to for an entire shift, for seven hours? And I said hm-mm.

And I read a lot of Oe's book because the train ride took forever back to Brooklyn and my mind is never here, it is always in the sky, being led down dreamy paths by all these brilliant cultural products. And when I got off the train, I went over to Paul's house to watch Larry David be a genius in the two most recent episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is by far and away my favorite thing currently on television. It gets everything so right and makes people so uncomfortable because of it, but he is the misanthrope we all secretly are on the inside.

Walking home, I thought I saw numerous people, none of them who I actually thought they were when I got closer. The third person I saw, convinced that I knew them, was Ryan, the boy I had the one night stand with on Halloween. He was about a block walking down his street (Lorimer), so it might have actually been him, but everyone sort of looks the same in this neighborhood, especially from a block away. I got lost in dreams of boys for a while and played and replayed in my head numerous boy debacles and missteps I have made and how lonely I am sometimes, like then when I was having those thoughts and walking down Grand Street regretting having not made an effort to see that boy again. And so I stopped in La Bonita and got a sandwich. While I was waiting for it, I read a pretty good piece of lit crit in this week's Village Voice by a former co-worker whose byline I recently saw in The Believer, and then felt low again, thought about how here is a peer doing things with her life that I tell myself I want to be doing with mine. Then I got motivated in some sort of competitive way (which sadly, is where most of my motivation stems from), but now, of course that sandwich dripping with mayo has been consumed and so now I just sort of want to lie in bed and read more.

Oh and also, because things come in threes. First being this possible Ryan, second this person's byline - and third thing that made me feel pathetic was looking at these photos from gay hip hop night and seeing one at the end of the night of Craig sharing a beer with Matt and wondering, imagining what happened after that shot, how their hands continued to touch until they got back to his aparment three blocks away, at which point other things touched.

I have a book to read, thank you very much.

PS- Ethan, there is a picture of you making out with Roman up there, also.

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Despite the local news organizations best efforts to convince me that my vote doesn't matter, that the outcome has already been decided, that Bloomberg is ahead by 39 points in the last poll, and blah blah blah, all said on every news broadcast I watched this morning as if everyone had voted already, basically telling me to stay home - despite their efforts, I went out and voted. At the polling place, I was struck by how there wasn't one campaign outside trying to convince voters. On the day of the primary a couple months ago, there were people from just about every campaign out front and the street was a mess of people.

I voted for Ferrer because I do like him and think it is disgusting how Bloomberg totally saturated tv day and night with commericals, preventing Ferrer from ever getting a message out. Not that I hate Bloomberg, but Ferrer is pretty awesome on affordable housing and on gay rights and on the proper usage of police at protests (um, remember RNC?). The rest of the candidates, all those circuit court judges, I just pulled the Democrat lever like everyone else, no clue who these people were. Except for Brooklyn Borough President. If you haven't voted yet, you should vote for Gloria Mattera with the Green Party. She is awesome. Prop 1, voted no. 2, 3, and 4, voted yes.

I watched Mysterious Skin last night and it was amazing and wow, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, that Third Rock boy grew up to be pretty damn hot. There is a scene where he is talking to his mom in the door to another room, and hanging his arms from the doorframe, and how this boy is able to exude such intense sexuality is amazing. I would not have thought him capable of that. That scene made me think a lot about boys and about desire, something I talk about a lot, but something which I am thinking a lot about lately and will show you what I have been thinking soon. I also was suprised by how good he got the thrill of doing sex work. That cocky expression, taking in your surroundings in mild disbelief. Spot on.

Monday, November 7, 2005

New Friendster Message from Craig

That is what I like seeing in my inbox. I love it when a boy that you have a crush on writes you. There is that intense nervousness/anticipation before you click through to the actual message and you think eight million things, that he is going to admit his love of me and say we should hang out, or no, he is going to say I am an obnoxious asshole and never to talk to him again, or, or, or, and man, all the things my mind thinks in those ten or so seconds it takes me to actually get to the message. Granted, it didn't say much, but still he wrote and that's all I care about and he didn't tell me to die:

hi charlie. it was nice bumping into you the othernight. i hope the memorial thing in new jersey wentokay and that you're good attitude persists.

see you around,c

I am way too hyper for what time of day it is, had a bit of coffee, more than a bit this morning and might have another cup before I head off to work and watch the sunset from this tall building's windows over the Hudson River. My dad's memorial thing is on Saturday in Montclair. I have still yet to figure out how NJ Transit works. I am listening to David Bowie's Hunky Dory and feeling pretty damn good and I still want Craig's babies. Yes, yes I do.

I was thinking to myself while I was playing Jamie how much I really wanted to play Scrabble against someone who could totally kick my ass, being fairly confident that I was going to beat her since I was barely ahead for most of the game. Then it was the last couple moves of the game and I knew she had the Q left and couldn't play it and I was already ahead by ten points, so I knew that would be minus ten for her and plus ten for me if she was unable to play it, so I was fairly sure that I was going to win. But last play of the game, she played her Q and her U to form QUA after asking me if it was a word really doubtful, and I said yes, assuming she already knew that. And so, final score 283-282. So close! But it feels good to lose, like I want to play again right now and win by a million points. I need to up my level of play. I like that competitive thrill.

Sunday, November 6, 2005

"You'll live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to."

This quote, said by the only character with any real life in them, made me comment to Adele what a good line that was. Then I looked at the cigarette in my hand, the thing that caused my father's death less than a week ago, and the glass of red wine in my other hand, and realized what a hedonist I was, how obviously, I would nod my head in agreement at that line. But I don't see why that is a problem. I mean, obviously the smoking is going to end soon but this line was said in reference to eating another slice of cheesecake, and that I am all for, enjoying all these senses we have, and throwing caution to the wind, dancing and not caring that you are dancing by yourself, and not caring that you broke a vase loaded with symbolism doing so.

Granted, it is directed by Woody Allen and it deals with death, cheating, jealousy, and love, themes he comes back to again and again. There are, of course, characters who are writers and the plot focuses on three sisters, much as in Hannah and Her Sisters, but aside from that, this is not a Woody Allen movie. It is his homage to Bergman and has no real laughs in the whole movie. And this movie allows me to see the magic that is a Woody Allen movie, how this movie lacks all those aspects, that it is all about tone. This movie in fact circles back to the conversation the two writers have in Melinda and Melinda, about how after hearing the same story of a friend, one could retell it as a tragedy and one could retell it as a comedy. This is Allen taking what he would normally use as fodder for comedy and instead using it in a tragic way. But, I haven't been able to take tragedy seriously lately, ever since I became really annoyed with Lars von Trier and how admired he is, how it seems so silly, so fake to hold this stiff lip and pretend everything is so awful and so meaningful.

There were too many points in this movie where I rolled my eyes, that nothing is this serious, that there is a mix to it all, that there is bad, that there is good and there are laughs and music along the way. It wasn't until over an hour into this movie that the first music was heard, and that was striking because normally Allen movies are buoyed by jazz soundtracks throughout the movie. There was a silence to the scenes that was unnatural, that people have radios and records playing around the house, that there is all this noise we fill up our lives with but yet you couldn't show that and still have it be a tragedy. It was good and there are obivously lots of people who like this movie, but lots of people tend to like things that seem serious, as if that means they have serious tastes.

That question of what a life is really struck me, that yes, you can live and live and live and be a hundred, but does that mean anything if it is so restrained, that all that matters are these joys, these pleasures, and there is no need to take them in moderation. One of the character's called this one, the one who made this quote cited at the top that I loved so much, "a vulgarian."

Tonight. Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV with roommates, whiskey and red wine, Ethan and Matt. Scrabble, which I won. Christy's party where I drank cheap beer and talked to homos. Then gay hip hop dance party with too many crushes past and present. During, I went to bodega to get rolling papers, got a beer, and puked it up on the street in front of two hipster girls. Um, I want Craig's babies. Ham and cheese at La Bonita. Now bed. And no dick. Save you

Saturday, November 5, 2005

I finished Kaddish this afternoon, sitting at the Christopher Street piers, started with the sun warm and high up, finished with it chilly and setting. I walked through the West Village to Astor Place, went to my favorite wine store, sampled six amazing wines before sampling a 15 year old Glengarry and a 34 year old Glenlivet. Those scotches were amazing. All that was consumed on an empty stomach. I walked around the East Village before getting on the train, mildy drunk, amazed that I had just drank something that was made before I was born, thought about time, my own life's dot on that line, how there was stuff before it, this Glevlivet which preceeded my own life by a decade, and thought about what that means, a body's absence from the temporal world. Four days today.

I skipped out on a party with a bunch of homos in my neighborhood tonight for no real reason, or probably way too many vaild ones which I should not even need to enumerate. Before doing that, I IM'ed with this boy in Hell's Kitchen back and forth, this boy who had posted an ad on Craigslist with a picture of his gorgeous penis. He was too tired to come out to Williamsburg and may, or more likely, may not contact me tomorrow for me to suck him off. I don't know what it is I want or what it is I need, but I am grasping for touch and experience of some sort and just now put an ad on Craigslist and will see if anyone responds to that before I finish writing here and climb into my bed with this glass of red wine, cheap red wine from my local liquor store bought for five dollars earlier this evening, and if so, I might have anonymous sex with someone off the internet, and I don't know, but I want to lose my mind and am doing it the best way I know how.

I took a shower earlier this evening with scalding hot water and got so emotional and felt so good and came out wrapped in my towel and had to lie on my bed for a good long while to catch my breath, and I just want to push myself to whatever physical limits I have and feel this body that I have, feel in some way alive, not dead.

The Woody Allen marathon continued tonight with Deconstructing Harry, which was amazing for a recent Allen film (1997), and which Curb Your Enthusiasm very obviously lifted a plot from in one of last season's episode. I mean the language is a little too course, you know how some people just sound forced when they are cussing. It comes off really awkward to hear "fuck" out of Allen's mouth and so often, so unnatural sounding. But other than that, this movie is so good and talks a lot about Allen's career, which I read instead as conversation about Philip Roth's career, which it might very well have been. Tomorrow night, I think I am going to Christy and Sasha's party, but if I don't make it there, or even if I do, the Allen marathon will probably continue. Maybe I can watch all of his movies before December 1st, when his new movie, Match Point comes out. Maybe I am just looking for projects, things to occupy my time and my mind. More than likely, actually.

Friday, November 4, 2005

I went to Central Park today with the intention of reading the rest of Ginsberg's Kaddish, which I started last night, drunk on a cheap Bordeaux wine. I never even took the book out of my bag. I listened to the same Final Fantasy album over and over again for about four hours straight and walked around the park, absorbing all the colors, and only thinking from time to time about the parallels between death and autumn. I lied down in a pile of leaves while tourists were taking pictures of all the pretty fall colors. And I, for once, was not shy about taking pictures - because it is Central Park and everyone and their grandma was taking pictures of all the leaves, everyone saying this is beautiful, this is beautiful, the easiest, the best way so many of us know how. The only time my eyes watered was when I walked along this fenced off field and started to run my hand along the fence and kept it there as I was walking, pressing hard, not caring about getting my hand dirty because for that amount of time, I was a kid walking along a fence doing the same thing and I was not in Central Park then, I was on some ball field, probably at Bucknell in Northern Virginia just in love with the sensation of the fence's grating running underneath my fingertips.

I know a lot of you already read this, but if not, and if you're even mildy fascinated by all those scenester photoblog sites, you will love Blue States Lose. It used to be on the now defunct Tale of Two Cities, but last week moved to Gawker where it is featured every Friday. It is basically Vice's "Don'ts" section except funnier and not sexist/racist/homophobic, or not as much so. Here is #6 and #2, I cannot decide which is more genius:

6) Last Night’s Party. 1st Anniversary photo #9193: You know that feeling that birdwatchers get when they spot their first Red-flanked Bluetail? Of course you don’t. But try to imagine that surge, that rush. Now multiply it by four, because this mindfuck of a photograph is a one-time meeting of all the breeds of the male hipster flocks. From left to right, you’ve got the hip-hop savvy coolkid who does things like wear Doors T-shirts. Then he spend the entire night trying to convince people that he’s doing it unironically while explaining how “important” the band was. Then you’ve got the Britrock buzz band enthusiast who’s always drunk and doesn’t give a fuck about New York hipster style but yet somehow always looks understated and impeccable. He always leaves with someone. Then you’ve got the guy whose parents are paying for his Bedford Avenue sublet and drinks for all his friends (when he’s not at an open Sparks, Red Stripe and Svedka bar, ‘natch). And finally, the poor schmuck who is always trying a bit too hard who nobody really likes. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but this one might be worth an entire DFA compilation. Seriously, we just sent the link to the Library of Congress and we got an instant response that just said, “Whaaaaaaaaaa???”

2) Misshapes. Oct. 29, 2005 photo #006: When we said it couldn’t be done, he just smirked and cocked his head to the side. “Oh really?” he asked, full well knowing that he had it in him. “Well, I said I’m going to do heroin chic ’80s Bruce Springsteen Vietnam Vet gay biker pirate assassin, and heroin chic ’80s Bruce Springsteen Vietnam Vet gay biker pirate assassin is what I’m going to do, even if I have to murder some no good Johnny-come-lately just for his bandana. So fucking deal with it! The end!”

I wonder if the people on Blue States Lose are really hurt by it or really proud of it. I can't decide if I would be so excited, or hurt. Probably, so excited. I am listening to Neil Diamond's new album, 12 Songs, which believe it or not, is actually really, really good. It reminds me a lot of slow Bruce Springsteen. I am thinking about going to the Cloisters or just somewhere pretty out in this gorgeous seventy degree weather. Anthony told me that this death could be really freeing and that reminded me of how I felt that way yesterday afternoon walking to the bank. I mean, I really felt so free and was smiling ear to ear and I don't know how to properly explain this feeling but it was pretty much one of the most joyous, liberating feelings I have ever had. And I briefly experienced it again this morning, taking a shower, listening to Final Fantasy. I will try to explain this later. I really need to get outside and be in this gorgeous world, though.

I really appreciate everyone who has contacted me or made efforts to. I really do.

It's weird how there are expectations for grief and wondering if you are living up to them, measuring your own reactions and your own actions by some imagined yardstick of how people are supposed to grieve, of what is or is not appropriate. How I called in sick yesterday and today because it just would not seem appropriate to go into work hours after learning your father had died. I had Paul and Greg over tonight to watch a Woody Allen movie with me, Hannah and her Sisters, and when I opened the door for Paul and he asked me how I was doing, I told him that I was doing all right, feeling kind of weird, and that my dad died yesterday. This shocked Paul that I mentioned this so casually and that I was having him over to watch a movie, and he asked me if I was sure that I was okay, if I didn't need to just blghfskh - that is sort of the noise he made, this noise that I understood, which meant to just be a mess and be alone and not make conversation and watch a comedy.

I think Paul thinks that I am mental and that I am secretly a mess and put on a happy face. But I think I admit to being a mess, but am a happy one, one whose happiness is so dependent upon that messiness, of knowing how in flux everything is and how I am so happy to just be riding the crest of this wave until it finally does crash.

There are a couple house parties this weekend that I want to go to. If I don't go, the Allen marathon will continue. They are all I want to watch at this moment, that they bring up all these concerns I have in a way that I can deal with right now, these themes of death and what exactly our purpose in life is, and strikes such a positive note on the theme, almost Beatlesish, in that all you need is love. But doesn't do so in a syrupy way, in a way that I can stomach and totally appreciate. I am prety smitten with Allen lately and lucikly he has about forty movies out there for me to consume, only eleven of which I have seen.

I really do love this and people and all of it.

From Hannah and Her Sisters, while Allen is watching a Marx Brothers film:

And I went upstairs to the balcony and I sat down. The movie was a film I'd seen many times in my life and I always loved it. I'm watching these people up on the screen and I started getting really hooked on the film, you know? And I started to feel, "How can you even think of killing yourself? I mean, isn't is so stupid. Look at all the people up there on the screen. They're real funny, and what if the worst is true - what if there's no God, and you only go around once, and that's it? Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it's not all a drag?" And I'm thinking to myself, "Jeez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never going to get and just enjoy it while it lasts. And after, who knows? You know, after, who knows, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have." And then I started to sit back and I actually began to enjoy myself.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Eat a bag of dicks! Fuck you, Justin. I thought I would never have to talk to you again when you and Dara packed up and left, after you were in my aparment for a good two weeks, messing it up, messing up my quality of life. And so you forgot your stupid Buzzcocks CD here along with some naked pictures of yourself tucked behind Dara's mattress. And yeah, maybe over a month ago, I told Dara I would mail the stupid CD to you.

But still, calling me while I am listening to Julie Ruin's "Apt. #5" over and over again at full blast in unacceptable. Especially when I don't recognize the number, except that it is a Tampa number and think that it is someone I want to talk to, but then it is you. And ugh, just download the stupid tracks. Or better yet, eat a bag of fucking dicks.

I did laundry today and scrubbed my bathtub and cleaned the kitchen floor and found myself happy to be doing these tasks.

Crossing streets has been scaring me today. I know my mind is elsewhere and I am so nervous that I won't pay enough attention and that a car will hit me. I have been extra cautious today crossing streets.

I watched Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors and really it was the chicken soup I needed, that fine balance between tragedy and comedy. Tomorrow will probably be another Allen movie that I haven't seen because right now I am not planning on going to work. Cleaning my house today, I listened to Joni Mitchell's Blue and Gillian Welch's Time (The Revealator) over and over.

I haven't told anyone in person that my dad has died. Just on the internet and on the phone. I want a hug. I have only cried twice today. Once, an hour afterward, trying to go back to sleep. And just now, writing the first sentence of this paragraph, realizing that I haven't told anyone in person, and realizing how much I want some physical contact reassuring me I am not alone.

From Crimes and Misdemeanors:

"We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe."

Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Today is All Souls Day, alternately referred to as the Day of the Dead. A couple minutes before nine, my phone rang and I pressed silence, still in heavy sleep in the midst of a crazy dream. It rang again and again, both times I hit silence right away. Finally, a message was left, which I listened to.

The dream I was having before I listened to this message involved me having to drive a car early in the morning and I was such a bad driver, but not suffering any of the costs that being a bad driver would cause you in real life. I drove my car into a lake, but was able to steer it out just as if I were playing Mario Kart. I wasn't suffering any damages to my car or more importantly, to my own body. And then I had to make all these tight turns that lasted so long and I kept on slipping into the next lane. I could not stay in the inner lane and make these really tight turns without slipping out toward the outer lanes. At some point, I realized that I was not a bad driver, that I was just tired and I realized how much better a driver I would be if I had coffee. I couldn't get any right then so just put on some good music and various songs played in this dream as I was driving around, the last one to play, the only one I kind of remember was a perky one by The Magnetic Fields.

It was while this song was playing that the message was left. I listened to the message and it was my aunt Herta, my dad's sister, telling me to call her back as soon as I got this message, that it was urgent. I knew that my father had died and I wasn't ready to hear it yet. I got out of bed, went in the bathroom and washed my face and then gathered a pen and paper, knowing that I might want to write something down. I went back into my room and right as I was about to call her, that is when her husband Ed called me. He told me that my father had died at about four this morning, that they had been with him last night and that he was in a peaceful state. Ed needed me to call this guy, Art Johnson with the Bureau of Prisons and tell him that I gave permission for Herta and Ed to take care of the final decisions. So I called this guy and he told me to write him an email stating that I relinquished the disposition of my father to Herta and Ed. I wrote him an email stating that.

All this before breakfast, before ten o'clock. Herta is going to call me when she gets back to Florida to let me know about the memorial service. I called my mom to let her know, hoping that she would be more responsive, more motherly this time since when I called her a couple days ago she did not really say too much and did not really seem like she wanted to talk about it. I got her voicemail and told her answering machine that he was dead. She called me back, I guess when I was in bed asleep because I didn't know how else to respond. All these significant things said not person to person but to recordings. She said that it was weird for her also, and that if I wanted to talk that I should call her, that she hopes I am okay. And this voice message made me feel better, that my mom was not just being cold, that this is probably even more conflicted for her than it is for me.

My sister's birthday is either right now or very soon. I am not sure what time, what day it is in Indonesia, but her birthday is November 3rd and so I had to write her an email today wishing her not only a happy birthday but also to tell her that our father, whom she hates, is dead. And I am not sure if I was being sincere or glib when I told her that this should be all the more reason to have a happy birthday, that knowing that death is never that far away should encourage a more fevered embrace of this life, of these moments now. I want to be sincere when I say things like that but honestly, I do not know how I feel right now. In Shortbus, so much of the plot is about this woman's inability to have an orgasm, and wondering if maybe she has already had it and it wasn't as big as she thought it was, that she was hoping for something else. And I sort of feel that way now, that I am not sure how I am supposed to respond, that I feel like I should be sadder than I am, that this experience should be more meaningful.

Like when you take ecstasy or acid and you are waiting for it to take effect, wondering if this is it, wondering if you are feeling the effects of it, eager for the drug to take effect. And eventually it does take effect, and your trying to identify the first signs of its arrival does no good in the end and that the best thing to do is just to relax and submit yourself to the experience, to let what waves come, come and crash over you. And even though, I am not particularly sad or all that melancholy, I do have an upset stomach. The thought of eating this morning seemed disgusting. Even though I was hungry, when I considered the things I could eat, when I seriously considered chewing food and swallowing it, I could not not imagine myself retching it up right away. I have had two eggs and a bowl of ramen today. I do not know what I will eat later, maybe lo mein, since that is the only thing I could imagine eating, that there is no chewing, just slurping.

Certain memories keep fading in and out and they are not the ones I expected to. There is something nice about that, that these things I haven't thought of in a long time have not disappeared, that they can still be conjured. It makes me feel more whole somehow, rather than being this body occupying this moment now with clear memories of the just before and then getting vaguer and vaguer as it stretches further and further into the past - that those past things can be just as sharp if not sharper than some of the more recent things. I do, however, feel the space between me and my sheets, that even that space seems too large, too lonely.

I ate a piece of cake and had two cups of coffee this evening. That was basically my dinner. I am getting more and more unhealthy and indulging in whatever pleasures I fancy whenever I so choose.

Then I watched two movies back to back. First, Rosemary's Baby, which I had watched the first half of a couple years ago and was stopped by the unpassable scratches on the DVD. It was nice to finally see the whole movie and also to see it now with a love of John Cassavetes firmly in place. I love how horror movies, more so than just about any other genre, ground themselves so firmly in domestic spaces and instill such a terror of a building. All those haunted houses, museums, and hotels. I was trying to think of why this is so effective at terrifying the viewer, but then realized how obvious it was/is and yes.

Second, Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda, which in really nice ways played with the differences between what makes something comic and what makes it tragic, how thin that line is. Had it been one of his sevenites movies, it would have been awesome. It just sort of diminishes these intelligent conversations (even though it shouldn't) to see them set in the New York that I know with new cars parked on the street, SUV's, and so I am just aware of how distinct these people are from the ones I know. Whereas, watching his older movies, the ornaments of the time are distinct enough from mine that I can imagine that everyone talks this way and behaves so intensely and not see them as awkward constructions. Also, I think there were some bad casting choices. Wallace Shawn had some excellent lines, but when he delivered them, I kept hearing him say "Indubitably" in The Princess Bride. But, I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie.

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

I have the worst cough ever, and because of that, because when I cough too hard, I start to dry heave, but probably more so because I still felt drunk when I woke up at seven to pee and because I felt so hungover when I woke up at one, I called in sick to work again today, making it about a week straight that I have done so.

I went to the parade with Adele and downed whiskey from a flask. Went to Savalas for the open bar and danced a lot with Adele and Adrian to songs that I like but which were played for too brief a time. We then wandered to Capones in search of more fun, and I stopped to talk to this boy who I had seen earlier walking by at the parade who claimed he was dressed like Scarlet O'Hara even though he was in flesh colored body suit. Capones was surprisingly fun with lots of dancing and Paul met up with us and then we wandered again, this time in hopes of encountering lots of homos and ended up at Metropolitan, which was way disappointing after coming from two really fun dance parties, but which was also not entirelly surprising. Ethan showed up there and I eventually left everyone out back to go back inside and try my luck standing alone, seeing if I could meet some boy since I wanted to continue my weekend of sluttiness.

They were playing a block of Morrissey and Smiths songs and this boy, Quentin, came up and talked to me. And you can never escape the people you know as much as you want to meet a stranger. I knew that Quentin liked me, he has said so much the last two times I have seen him at that bar and if I had wanted to sleep with him, I would have already done so. I was a little rude last night in talking to him and told him that telling someone they are hot is a turn off. And he astutely observed that that is always how it is, that if someone admits to liking you, you won't like them. And a little aggressively said that that was fine, that he could sleep anyone at the bar. I smiled, said Good, and walked out back again, leaving him there to get with anyone since I didn't want to. Two minutes later, he came out back also, talked to me about something, talked close and because why not, we started to make out.

I made out with him until they closed the back patio, kicking everyone inside and once inside he asked if I would come home with him. I smiled and said no. He asked if he could come home with me. I smiled and said no. And I like him somewhat. He is attractive and nice, but I just don't want to sleep with him for whatever reasons. And it was kind of awkward, telling someone that I wasn't going to sleep with them, and so I left to go smoke a cigarette in the back and look for a stranger, someone who I didn't know and someone who didn't know me, who I could sleep with. Midway through the cigarette, Quentin came up and talked to me again. I was standing by myself, trying to, because that's when you open yourself to social situations to present themselves to you, but Quentin kept finding me and preventing that from happen. Finally, I went and started talking to this boy dressed as JT Leroy about his costume, ignorning Quentin. I was so excited about this boy's costume, about the fact that here is someone who reads (even if it is Leroy), but someone that knows who Leroy is. When I pointed out the costume to Quentin earlier, he asked who Leroy was. If I didn't know Quentin, that he studied acting, that he doesn't really read, then I could have easily slept with him, but too much talking happened beforehand. I learned too much and couldn't have this body by itself, that these other details, this personality attached itself to it. Blank bodies, ciphers are what I want these days.

Leroy boy looked really cute even though he was hidden beneath a big wig and big sunglasses, but apparently he is one of the promoters of Bang, Chris, and then I sort of lost interest, or the desire to pursue someone who would probably not be interested. Everyone is either too cool or not cool enough, and surely you could pin the blame on me and say that I am making excuses, but it's what I am good at it. I came home and watched the beginning of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey with Adele way too late at night before crashing in my bed, falling asleep to the loud sound of those two boys screaming a lot thoughout that movie, travelling through time.